Southport’s Conservative MP has come under heavy fire for telling “shameless lies” to local residents in his latest pamphlet to constituents.
The glossy booklet has been slammed for a series of claims which have been described as an “expensive misinformation campaign”.
At the head of a queue of critics is Metro Mayor Steve Rotheram who bluntly tweeted that the MP’s attempts to claim credit for upgrades to Merseytravel trains were “shameless lies”, adding:
“Labour locally committed £460m for the most sophisticated and accessible trains for the Liverpool City Region and Labour will deliver them.”
Merseytravel Chair Liam Robinson says the Conservative politician’s claim is “outrageous” given his total lack of involvement:
“I am disgusted that the Southport MP is trying to claim any credit for himself or this government with the new trains coming to Merseyrail in 2020. It is a blatant lie as far as I’m concerned and outrageous misinformation.”
“The fact is that the trains have been financed by local borrowing and will be locally publicly owned – whereas the Conservative government insists on expensive privatised trains in every other part of the country.”
“The truth is that the Government is actually cutting our local rail grant, so it is not helping at all with our new trains.”
Liz Savage, Labour’s Parliamentary Candidate for Southport, says this is just one example from the leaflet which is “riddled with inaccuracies” she believes:
“Since their MP has come in from Preston, the Conservatives locally have simply run a desperate and expensive misinformation campaign.”
“Not only are his comments about Merseytravel simply untrue but there are other examples strewn through the leaflet. For instance, he also makes reference to restoring the Southport-Piccadilly service – not only is that actually happening because of widespread public anger and pressure but he fails to mention it was his government that was involved in the decision with Northen to cut it in the first place!”
“When it was later revealed in Parliament that Department for Transport officials had deliberately conspired to deceive Southport commuters about the closure of the direct service, Southport’s MP rushed not to the defence of local commuters but his colleague, the Transport Secretary Chris Grayling. That shows where his priorities lie for me.”
“Putting aside his misleading and petty attacks in the pamphlet on a local authority that his party and the Lib Dems have devastated with their near £1/4 billion cuts, the leaflet is actually doing a real disservice to residents I think.”
“It is riddled with inaccuracies and trying to grab credit for things he doesn’t deserve. Another example is his claims over the introduction of knife “metal detector wands” but again, the decision to fund and introduce them was nothing to do with him.”
“It was made by Cllr Trish Hardy, Chair of Sefton Safer Communities Partnership. It is yet more shameless glory hunting by the Southport MP to cover a track record that shows very little actual achievement for his 18 months so far.”
“The only good thing in the leaflet appears to be that he’s now downgraded his previous claims that he personally “secured” £675m in funding, a ludicrous boast about something that he still attempts to spin here but at least it is a step in the right direction.”
“He has also dropped from his so-called plan previous claims of wanting a stronger police presence – in reality, he’s voted for further police cuts. It seems some tales really are just too tall to keep telling, even for this Tory MP.”
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